Free Republic

New York City teachers, cops and firefighters lost nearly $30 million in pension funds tied to the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank. Critics accuse Comptroller Brad Lander, who is custodian of the pension systems, of favoring the “woke” bank over shareholders. Five city pension funds had a total of $41,867,214 invested in the doomed bank as of Jan. 31, according to data provided by the comptroller’s office under a Freedom of Information request by The Post. The comptroller’s Bureau of Asset Management oversees the investment portfolios. Among the largest funds left holding the bag were the Teachers Retirement System, which...

Top Republicans at the Wisconsin Capitol say they are working on a plan to send more state money to local governments across the state, but the city of Milwaukee this week added a bit of urgency to that work. On Monday, Milwaukee’s Steering and Rules Committee proposed cutting the city’s entire sixth police district to find the money to pay Milwaukee’s skyrocketing pension payment. "The gloomiest days are ahead of us when really we should be building for the future," Alderwoman Marina Dimitrijevic said. Milwaukee is also looking at deep cuts to its fire department, as well as other city...

French President Emmanuel Macron has signed into law his government's highly unpopular pension reforms, which raise the state pension age from 62 to 64. It happened hours after France's top constitutional body cleared the change. The Constitutional Council rejected opposition calls for a referendum - but it also struck out some aspects of the reforms, citing legal flaws. Following the council's ruling, protesters set fires across Paris and 112 people were arrested. Twelve days of demonstrations have been held against the reforms since January. Unions have vowed to continue opposing the reforms, and called on workers across France to return...

A growing wave of public pension administrators, business groups and labor unions are sending a message to Republicans looking to curb so-called “woke” investing: our money, our choice. Regulatory efforts to stop money from going to funds that consider environmental, social and governance issues, commonly known as ESG investing, have typically targeted big Wall Street asset managers. Now, public pensions are increasingly caught in the crosshairs and with them the retirement funds of teachers, librarians, firefighters and other public service employees. But while opponents of the anti-ESG restrictions are getting louder, their dissent hasn’t yet stopped the tide. ESG investing...

The French National Assembly rejected a vote of no-confidence against the Government of Emmanuel Macron and Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne, in the aftermath of the massive weekend protests over the French government pension plan. This defeat of the motion means that the Prime Minister will not have to resign, and that Macron’s tyrannical pension overhaul will become law. This is one of the biggest political crisis endured by the 45-year-old French President. Macron invoked a controversial executive power to force through his deeply unpopular pension overhaul by decree, without a parliamentary vote. Among other rejected provisions, it raises the retirement...

It’s not just silicon valley folks, a very large pension plan in Sweden was invested heavily in the Silicon Valley Bank. The fallout from Silicon Valley Bank has spread to Sweden’s largest pension group after the fund more than doubled its holdings in the Californian bank during the past year. Stockholm-based Alecta, which oversees more than $104 billion in assets, was SVB’s fourth-biggest shareholder at the end of last year with a holding worth $605 million, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Following a 60% plunge in SVB’s stock on Thursday, the value of the stake was worth only $279...

Interest rates are an important driver of the economy and financial markets. And what has happened to the S&P 500 index since The Federal Reserve started raising their target rate on May 4, 2023 to fight surging inflation? Since that fatal day, the S&P 500 index has fallen -6% and equity REITs (commercial real estate) has fallen -16%. Although The Fed has pledged to keep raising rates to fight inflation (and further decimate retirement accounts), investors are pointing to a peak (terminal) Fed rate of 5.44% at the September 2023 FOMC meeting. Then rate cuts following the September 2023 meeting....

Ukraine has a mixed record on attracting foreign private investment. In 2021, it ranked as the second-lowest country in Europe on Transparency International's Corruption Perceptions Index, behind only Russia. Vavrishchuk said the country would need to enforce the rule of law, ensure transparency and fair competition. "Participation in the post-war reconstruction could be attractive for investors," he said. "But still we will have to address all those issues (transparency and corruption) that we have not had time to before the war began."

QUESTION: Marty; Why would Biden allow the billions he is sending to fill the pensions of government workers in Ukraine? ANSWER: This video has been going viral. However, this was from the beginning – of April 28th, 2022. The pensions are all the Ukrainian politicians – not the people. This is the kickback for destroying their own country. As long as they are being paid by the United States, they will allow this civil war to continue unabated. This money going to Ukraine is filling the pockets of Ukrainian politicians against their own people. This was not from Biden’s surprise...

The US will provide additional economic assistance of $10 billion to Ukraine in the coming days, US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said Thursday. At a media briefing held on the sidelines of the first G-20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors’ (FMCBG) Meet, she said that the United States had already provided 46 billion dollars in security, economic and humanitarian aid.

A video clip from April 2022 of President Joe Biden requesting American taxpayer money to pay Ukrainian pensions has resurfaced, prompting anger as the nation debates reform of social security in America, which is projected to be depleted by the mid-2030s. In the circulated video, Biden says: It’s going to deliver much-needed humanitarian assistance as well as food, water, medicines, shelter, and other aid to Ukrainians displaced by Russia’s war, and provide aid to those seeking refuge in other countries from Ukraine.

Biden bragged about paying pensions for Ukrainians, But we hit the debt limit and his Treasury Secretary is taking “extraordinary measures,” Which means Biden is now literally selling investments of US pensions to fund Ukrainian pensions. [CNN Politics and WH.gov referenced at the URL].

Joe Biden just announced the US is going to be supporting the pensions in Ukraine. https://twitter.com/JackPosobiec/status/1626779089984946176

Hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets in France on Saturday in a fourth day of action against President Emmanuel Macron's pension reform, with unions planning to ramp up strikes if the plan is not dropped. Unlike on the three previous protest days there was no call for a day of nationwide strikes, although air traffic controllers at Paris' second airport staged a surprise walkout that resulted in the cancellation of half of flights. Macron and his government face a two-way fight to implement the plan to raise to pension age from 62 to 64 by overcoming resistance...

I got an email from my Senators that explained why they voted for the treaty. They made a deal with Obama. Tax dollars for Tennessee! They met with him told him they would vote for the treaty and for money to update our nuclear weapons facilities and asked that he request those funds in his budget (quote): Implementation includes spending $3.6 billion for a new secured area at Oak Ridge, covering 15 acres instead of the current 150. It means tearing down the last 17 Cold War buildings. The more efficient facility will save taxpayers $200 million each year in...

Three high-profile Democratic governors are struggling to stabilize their states’ retirement programs due to a falling stock market and may have difficulties paying out benefits in the coming years.

U.S. government pension funds currently have the lowest cash holdings since the 2008 financial crisis, and corporate pensions’ cash holdings are barely above the 13-year low they hit in 2021, which could spell disaster in the event of a financial crisis. Over the past 15 years, public pensions had 2.45% cash holdings and private pensions had 2.07% on average, but those have dropped to 1.9% and 1.7% respectively, according to The Wall Street Journal. The figures were higher even in 2008, when some retirement funds had to sell at inopportune times to make payments; one economist told the Daily Caller...

Chevron Corp. turned out to be one of the top performing assets David Root included this year in the workplace retirement portfolios his firm manages for companies that offer employee 401k plans. And he makes no apologies for the investment. “If you didn’t have energy as part of your portfolio this year — which averaged 35% to 40% returns — you had no chance of outperforming the S&P 500,” said Mr. Root, CEO of DBR & Co., Downtown. Some fund managers guided by their environmental, social and governance values rather than pure financial considerations might have ruled out an investment...

There are 132,188 public employees and retirees in Illinois who earned $100,000 or more last year.Auditors at OpenTheBooks.com found almost 500 educators in Illinois public schools had salaries between $200,000 and $439,000. Small-towns city managers made up to $341,300, and three doctors at the University of Illinois at Chicago earned between $1 million and $2.1 million.This is as crime increases, test scores drop among public school students, and inflation decimates private-sector paychecks. This doesn’t stop the Illinois public employee class from living the good life.Well-paid barbers working for State Corrections trimmed off $104,000, janitors at the Chicago Transit Authority cleaned...

Two million British workers face the prospect of paying 60 per cent of their income to the government in taxes as a result of the latest round of hikes by the supposedly conservative government which is also splashing out billions more on state employees’ pensions. This week, Chancellor Jeremy Hunt, an anti-Brexit holdover from the David Cameron era who played the pivotal role in ousting Liz Truss and installing Rishi Sunak as Prime Minister, announced that he would be increasing taxes by another £24 billion, taking the tax burden to its highest level since the Second World War.